


The Rain Dance

by Vita_S_West



Series: soft epilogue [2]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Garcy Week 2020, Gardens & Gardening, Post-Defeat of Rittenhouse (Timeless), Summer Vacation, a week in the life, living with grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24563395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_S_West/pseuds/Vita_S_West
Summary: When a nearly crushing heat wave hit the region, Lucy began to second guess the family vacation plan—a staycation.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Series: soft epilogue [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855366
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	The Rain Dance

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the prompt "A romantic summer vacation for Garcy in _their own dang back yard_." Enjoy!

When a nearly crushing heat wave hit the region, Lucy began to second guess the family vacation plan—a staycation. 

After jumping into a time machine so many times, jumping on a plane just wasn’t as appealing to Lucy or Flynn. It was somehow more exhausting and more pedestrian. With the exodus of their friends, Rufus and Jiya to Europe, Jessica and Wyatt on a road trip, Denise and her family heading to a resort, they  _ were _ guaranteed peace and quiet. 

“You’ve been through so much worse than a plane ride,” Rufus had groaned at them.

“And now we don’t have to,” Flynn had shrugged.

It was that simple. What they wanted was to spend time alone, in their house and their garden. Flynn had finally put up a hammock for Lucy to read in and he had declared his intention to learn to bake bread. Other than that, they were booked up solid to laze, lounge, and luxuriate at doing the bare minimum. 

The only kink in the plan was the special weather warnings that came into full effect right when their coveted time off was due to start.

“We have AC,” Flynn had said, a little anxiously. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

This had been true for the inside, but they had planned to spend their time outside.

As the thermometer rose, so did the humidex. The outside world became oppressively sticky with a UV index that threatened skin damage.

Flynn and Lucy stood in their air conditioned kitchen, staring out their back window at their patio furniture on their small porch, their hammock, and their garden.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Flynn muttered darkly. “This week of all weeks.”

“Will the flowers be alright?” Lucy asked.

“We’ll water them this evening, but I hope so.” He didn’t sound very certain.

“We should have gone to Paris,” Lucy muttered. “Or Prague.”

Flynn glanced at her. “Do you really want to?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I don’t want to be stuck inside all week.”

“Let’s have some ice cream.” Flynn left his vigil at the window and Lucy stared after him.

“We just had breakfast!”

“We’re on vacation! Besides, we’ll be able to eat it outside because it’s cold!”

“I’m not sure that will work…”

“Sure it will!”

It was a mistake. In addition to the stickiness of their sweat, they also suffered the stickiness of the melting ice cream as they raced the heat to eat it. The heat won.

Lucy tried, briefly to read, while Flynn stalked through the garden, checking for bugs and examining the blooms. Neither lasted more than a matter of minutes.

The humidity had a heaviness to it. Like a soaking wet blanket, it clung to their skin and weighed down. It clung so badly, Lucy wished she could take off her own skin.

When they got back inside they laid down on the cool tiles of the kitchen, side by side.

“The outside is trying to kill us,” Flynn griped.

“I can’t believe we booked a vacation to hang out in our backyard and we can’t even go outside. It’s right there!”

They stayed like that for several minutes, their chests rising and falling as they stared at their ceiling fan. Eventually they got up to salvage the day. This included making lemonade, reading their books and lazing on the living room couch, but a sense of stir-craziness set in shortly after lunch.

That it felt too much like the bunker, they left unsaid. They didn’t usually feel anxious embracing their homebody instincts, but it was different when their access to the outside was limited.

“We could go to a café for lemonade or something,” Lucy said.

“We’d have to drive and I want a guarantee that they have AC ahead of time.”

“If they have a nice patio it might not matter.”

“It won’t start cooling down until later though, so it won’t make much difference.”

“Where has reliable AC?” Lucy mused, stroking her chin.

“Tourist traps,” Flynn said immediately. “We can go to a history museum and laugh at the exhibits. See if we see anyone we know.”

“A lot of work goes into those exhibits and I don’t want to laugh at anyone’s hard work.”

“Art gallery then. There’s gotta be a modern art gallery nearby.”

Flynn pulled out Lucy’s laptop and typed in her password to investigate this option. She moved over onto the couch next to him, rolling her eyes at his laziness. His laptop was only in the next room.

“Why modern art?”

“I don’t know. We’ve already seen so much history. It could be a good way to reacquaint ourselves with the present.”

“But what if,” Lucy paused, not quite willing to admit her main source of hesitation.  _ What if she didn’t get it? _

“We can find a café on Yelp, if you want, I just worry it will basically be what we’ve been doing here.”

“I suppose we can go after,” Lucy said.

“Exactly. If we get bored we can just leave.”

***

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was a massive, bright and airy building. It was so strikingly different from their small house and the bunker that it instantly reassured Lucy. Her feelings of claustrophobic dissipated when she looked up at the high ceilings and gleaming-white walls. While the special exhibits came with fees, there were enough of the permanent exhibits to keep them occupied. 

Flynn clasped her hand in his and off they went.

“Okay, there’s  _ some _ history,” he mused to Lucy as they picked their way through the halls.

They drifted through roomfuls of Alexander Calder mobiles, Ellsworth Kelly abstracts, and Roy Lichtenstein pop paintings. They looked at the pieces as they went. If something caught their eye, they would stop to examine it closer and read its accompanying blurb.

They paused at the Rothkos, several  _ Untitled _ squares and  _ Tentacles of Memory,  _ a brown surrealist piece with small patches of blue and orange.

Flynn read part of the artist’s statement aloud as Lucy’s eyebrows drew together, “‘our paintings, like all myths, combine shreds of reality with what is considered ‘unreal’ and insist upon the validity of the merger.’”

“I don’t know what that means,” she blurted.

“Me neither,” Flynn remarked cheerily. “The blue part looks like it could be half of a face.”

“Next to what, a pitchfork?” Lucy pointed at the centre, a branching series of lines, like a tree with no eaves.

“Maybe it’s the unreal,” Flynn said. They carried on, stopping on the third floor to stare at  _ The Living Wall _ . Filled with multiple different textures, it was lush, diverse and monochromatic. The entire thing was covered, from top to bottom, with plants, growing out of the wall.

“Wow,” Flynn said with awe and Lucy had to agree, until she realized where he was going. “Do you think we can do something like that at our place?”

“No!”

They meandered slowly along its length. It was so large, they couldn’t see it in its entirety from any single vantage point.

“That entire thing is alive,” Flynn said.

“It’s really impressive, but we’re not covering the house in plants.”

“It could be a real statement.”

“Our neighbours would try to mow our house down.”

He snorted.

They ran out of energy before they ran out of art to look at and ended up at a nearby café after all, sipping italian sodas. Lucy absentmindedly thumbed through her book, while Flynn seemed content to people-watch.

“You didn’t get to make bread,” she mused.

“I was thinking it would be much too hot to start making bread this week. It may have to be a fall activity. I’m more concerned about the garden.”

“Do we have to water it more?”

“Among other things. I’ll put mulch down to protect the soil tonight.” 

“Ah,” Lucy said, as if she knew anything about plants. The garden had been his project.

“Those transplants I put in the other week though? Those don’t have much chance.” He grimaced.

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah, well, maybe next year.” He shrugged his shoulders noncommittal but his tone betrayed his disappointment. “What do you say? Dinner time?”

***

Later that night, Lucy watched Flynn carefully put mulch down across the garden in the dusk. They had made idle plans for outings to bookstores, bakeries or Fisherman’s Wharf, but Lucy knew what Flynn actually wanted was to hang out in their garden without getting heatstroke. She went upstairs to brush her teeth and into bed to read.

Passing briefly by the back window, she saw Flynn, watering cans abandoned at his side, jumping in a circle. She stared, blinking, wondering if she was seeing things. Maybe she was overtired. But there he was, hopping around in a wide circle, between the patches of california roses and across from the carnations. In the darkening of the sky, she could see his t-shirt, wet and sticky, cling to his chest and back.

After another minute he stopped and turned and approached the house. He disappeared from view and then she heard the downstairs door open and close. Maybe he’d been stung by a bee?

Lucy drifted to their bedroom slowly as she heard the kitchen tap turn on and then off. Then the slurp of water. She opened the door and got into bed. She pulled out her book, but mostly listened to Flynn come upstairs and go to the bathroom. The shower sounded and minutes later he came in, hair dripping, towel held around his waist.

“Hey,” he said, barely glancing at her before he went to the cupboard for his pajamas.

“What were you doing out there?”

“Just putting down mulch and watering.” He shrugged. Lucy had a brief moment where she wondered whether she should push him, before he continued. “I’ll have to get up early tomorrow to do some more watering. Then, I don’t know if you want to go to some bookstores and grab lunch or kick around here in the morning and go to bookstores in the afternoon…”

“Maybe we can eat lunch here and go out for dinner in the evening tomorrow. I don’t want to eat out all week.”

“Maybe we should save it for Friday in that case. We can make pizza or something tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

He got into bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling his head into her side. Lucy’s hand drifted from her book, into his damp, ruffled hair. 

“Tired?” she asked.

“Mm.”

“Want me to turn the lights out?”

“Mm.”

“Okay.” She turned the lights out.

***

The next day, after lunch, they drifted in and out of an assortment of bookstores, each with its own personality. They wandered around airy, uncrowded spaces that showcased thoughtfully curated titles. In another, a two-story building housed the new titles, while two doors down, Flynn found the used book arm. It was a little quieter with high windows and invited lingering, something Lucy appreciated. 

“Do I have too many books?” Lucy asked as she weighed her newest against her previous purchases, filling her tote bag almost to the brim.

Without looking up from a worn copy of  _ Great Expectations _ , Flynn murmured, “No…”

“You’re enabling.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Finally, he turned to raise an eyebrow at her.

“You’re putting me to shame. Is that all you’re getting?”

“I found a gardening book, too, if you’re worried I’ll get bored. Besides I can just read whatever you like. You’ll be my quality control.”

“I guess. Will that be okay though? What if you don’t like my books?”

“Then I won’t read them,” he said, surprised that this was an issue of concern for her.

“Right,” she said. “Why  _ Great Expectations _ ?”

“It’s a classic in every timeline. You know, someone in the railway station in 1865, mentioned reading it. They seemed to really like it. Clearly, we’re collectively onto something.”

Lucy chuckled. “Taking book recommendations from the 1860s. While on the way to an assassination…” She let her voice drop as a patron walked by, giving them a curious look.

As they both watched him walk by Flynn muttered, “People do find me relatable, you know.”

“I think our lives were too exciting,” Lucy said with a sigh as she weighed her stack of books again.

“What? Are you bored?”

“No! I’m just… this is more or less the dream, other than the heat.”

“And we’re only getting to it now?”

“Well, yeah.”

“We’ve got all the time in the world,” he murmured with a wink.

***

That night, Lucy descended the stairs to get a snack before bed and to see how Flynn’s late evening gardening was going. Much of the heat of the day had dissipated to make the yard more bearable, but it hadn’t deterred the bugs or the heavy humidity. As Lucy looked out the window, past her own reflection, she saw Flynn’s same strange jumping. He jumped in a wide circle, throwing his arms up and down as he went.

Something had to be wrong. Lucy pushed the back door open and stepped into the density of the outside air. “Are you all right?” she half-shouted.

Flynn jerked to a stop mid-leap. His chest heaved, and a triangular sweat stain had formed at his neck and drifted downward to his stomach.

“Yes,” he said, out of breath. “Yes, of course.”

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

They both stared at each other, Lucy on their back steps and Flynn in the middle of his garden, that already looked a little wilted. Her eyebrows went up in disbelief and Flynn bit his lip in apparent embarrassment at clearly being caught in a lie.

He approached, his chest still rising and falling in deep breaths, but he looked a little more mastered of himself. “Let’s go inside.”

Lucy watched him guzzle down her glass of water with her hands on her hips. He yanked off his shirt, and rubbed his chest that glistened from his exertion. Finally he turned to her, looking a little sheepish.

“What were you doing?” she asked impatiently.

“I was, er, I was doing a rain dance.”

“What?”

“A rain dance. You know, a rain dance.” That seemed to be all he could supply as explanation.

Lucy’s eyebrows climbed higher and she attempted to confirm, “You were dancing to make it rain?”

“Yes.”

Lucy’s initial reaction to ask him why he thought that would work seemed cruel. 

“It’s something that Iris used to do,” he explained. “She started doing it for snow when we lived up north, whenever she wanted a snow day. There were mixed results,” he said with a gentle smile, one that didn’t quite reach the sadness in his eyes. “She kept doing it when we moved to California, but this time for rain. You know, sometimes it worked, so I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t really know how to explain it. I mean it’s not entirely rational to think that it will work but…”

“You think it will,” Lucy finished.

Flynn shrugged.

They stayed like that for a few moments, the air conditioning cooling Flynn so that goosebumps travelled up his arms.

“I should get showered,” he said finally. It was the way he looked down when he said it. 

“Is there something else?” she asked as he turned to leave.

He paused for a minute to lean against the door frame of their kitchen.

“I miss them. I miss them both so much sometimes and I,” he paused to clear his throat as his voice tightened like a knot. His eyes shone. “I wanted a way to feel close to them.”

With a sigh Lucy walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him, forgetting for a moment that he was filthy with sweat and dirt.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

He tightened his arms around her. He didn’t say anything. He nodded and seemed satisfied with a tight hug.

***

The next day, over dinner, Lucy asked Flynn, “Should we put up pictures maybe?”

“What of?” he asked. 

They had spent the day pottering around the house, reading their books, cooking and doing laundry. It was the kind of thing they reserved for Sundays, not a Wednesday.

“Iris and Lorena. Should we put up pictures of them? Would that make you feel better?” she asked hesitantly.

Flynn paused mid-bite to consider before nodding. “Yeah, that would—I’d like that.”

That evening, as Lucy watched Flynn dance around the yard, she realized he was chanting “Rain! Rain! Rain!” as he went.

Had he always been chanting and she’d never noticed or did he now feel freer to half-shout it?

An idea struck her as he entered the house, sticky with his exertion and the abhorrent humidity.

“Can I help?” she asked. “Next time.”

Flynn paused to consider this before turning to drink straight from the tap. When he resurfaced, the bottom part of his face dripping, he nodded. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not.”

***

They spent a humid day wandering around Fisherman’s Wharf, taking advantage of air conditioning where available and stopping for a beer on a patio when they got tired. The heat was still unpleasantly high, but in comparison to the previous days, it was lower. It was the difference of a few degrees, but everyone they encountered commented on it gratefully.

“It does feel less scorching today,” Flynn remarked, as they sat under the shade of plant-covered patio rafters. They had half-finished beers and some spinach artichoke dip that they absent-mindedly picked at before them.

“I just can’t wait until we can reach a point where we don’t talk about it all the time,” Lucy grumbled.

“What?” Flynn laughed. “You’d rather talk about something more exciting? I thought we were happy to be done with all that!”

“We can talk about more interesting things than the weather, but less interesting things than getting shot at.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

She snorted. “How’s  _ Great Expectations _ going?”

“Good. You forget how long-winded Victorians are.”

She shook her head him.

When they arrived home in early evening, they spent a good portion of the evening lazing on the couch together. Flynn lay on his back, with Lucy sprawled on top of him, with the gentle rise and fall of his chest lulling her into a nap. It wasn’t welcome when he lightly patted her back and declared it was time to get up.

“No,” Lucy groaned loudly.

“Come on, I have to water and you have to help me dance.”

She groaned again, but sat up immediately, rubbing her eyes. He remained vertical, however, chuckling softly as he looked up at her.

“What?” she grumbled at him.

“Nothing,” he murmured as he rubbed her thigh. “You’re cute is all.”

“Oh, if that’s all,” she muttered, bending over for a kiss that he eagerly received. His whole arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her in closer and Lucy heard herself sigh happily.

He pulled away though, when she tried to deepen their kiss. “You can’t distract me that easily.”

“What?”

He patted her thigh. “It’s garden time.”

Lucy groaned again, but allowed herself to be scooped up and set beside him as he pulled himself up and his legs off the couch.

“It’s time for the work,” he declared cheerily as he rubbed his hands together. 

That evening, Lucy helped him in the garden. Their hose wasn’t long enough to reach the back of the garden, so she spent a lot of time lugging watering cans in and out of the house, as Flynn carried the cans to the back to water. He said he had been too tired to water them the day before, so he was grateful for Lucy’s help. Luckily, nothing was wilting, so it looked like Flynn’s watering had been sufficient. This was good, as apparently the rain dance consisted of a lot of jumping around.

“So how does this work?” Lucy asked.

“Well, Iris used to jump and dance around in a circle, throwing her arms up and down, while chanting ‘Rain! Rain! Rain!’” he explained.

“Is it just the jumping in a circle and the arm movements up down?” Lucy asked.

“You don’t put your arms straight up or down. At an angle up and forward and then at an angle down and behind. And alternate between the two.”

“I’m sure I can just follow you.”

“Yes, but you also have to put your own spin on it and chant ‘rain’.”

Lucy found herself smiling at his solemnity. For a man who had a sarcastic quip in response to everything, it was a stark contrast to him sincerely explaining a rain dance.

“Let’s do the daily work out,” she said.

When Flynn danced, he would occasionally kick out his leg forward or backwards, the opposite direction to which he was hurling his arms. As a result, Lucy struggled to keep an appropriate distance behind him as they danced in a circle. It was hot and sweaty, but soon Lucy found her rhythm, and measured it carefully to fit his, as they chanted, with every breath, willing rain.

***

Before falling into bed exhausted—dancing around in the heat and humidity even if in the evening—Fynn turned to Lucy.

“Thanks for doing that with me.”

“Of course,” she said, hand drifting across the duvet and into his.

“It means a lot. It… it feels good to be able to do that sort of thing. It hurts in a way, but…”

“It’s a good kind of hurt?” Lucy asked, softly.

“Yeah. Like she’s here too.”

“I think she’d like the garden.”

“They both would have.”

He covered his face with his hands, his chest rising and falling with stuttered breath. Lucy pulled herself closer, wrapping her arms around him. “I wish I’d more time,” he said, his voice tight.

“I know,” she murmured. “I know.”

There wasn’t much else she could say. Slowly, eventually, he pulled his hands from his face and wrapped his arms around her. He sniffled, but she didn’t comment on it, merely continuing to hug him. In the warmth of summer, and the deepening and darkening blueness of the sky, they let the memories join them. They didn’t wrestle with the grief, but sat down with it as a lasting companion and let it share their thoughts.

***

They spent the entire next day pottering around the house. They had had more than enough outings in the past week and the humidity had reached an impossible height, one that felt so thick like it was an extra layer walk through. Everything felt thick and slow, like cold molasses.

Flynn had stepped outside in the morning and promptly stepped back inside to Lucy’s raised eyebrows. “There is no outside,” was all he said.

They spent the day reading, half-heartedly cleaning, and cooking. They laid across their bed, Flynn with his back against the headboard and Lucy sprawled on her stomach. They flipped idly through their books, as their iced teas sweat on their bedside tables.

Lucy was considering the necessity of her shorts, when an immense roar startled her. Their eyes met, as they both tensed, old memories hitting them before the realization of the present. It came again like a crash from heaven itself and they leapt off of the bed in the same instinct, sprinting for the stairs. They were careful not to stumble down the stairs, but they slipped and slid in their hurry from the hall to the kitchen.

They stepped out into the garden as the darkening sky cast no shadows under the cloud cover. The change in the air was so perceptible, that it was almost as audible as the thunder.

They stood, staring at the grey and black clouds, their breath held for a moment, then another, then—

A deluge began to fall, almost an implosion, more peaceful than the thunder. Flynn cast Lucy a look. As she began to smile, he ran into the yard, not even bothering with his shoes, letting out a great  _ whoop! _

With a laugh, Lucy followed him. Slowing to a stop, she rotated slowly, arms out, feeling the cold and the wet meet her skin. It was soothing, fresh and clean. A relief from the near constant feeling of sweat that the damp had become synonymous with.

As sudden as his shout, Flynn threw his arms around her and lifted her up. The shriek she let out was instinctual, but it gave way to laughter as he spun her around. 

After he set her down lightly, they stayed like that. She leaned against his back, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

In unspoken agreement, they drifted back inside, to shed their wet clothes, and fall into bed, as they listened to the pattering rain on the window pane of the home they’d made. 


End file.
